ozarkmountainknives Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 TV SHOWS !!!! Just like the early 2000s and the custom bike craze. I was building and servicingbikes then. All it did was make parts, materials, supplies, tools, equipment impossible to find, drive up prices, make custom high dollar bikes impossible to insure. Made people who where established in the business lives miserable. I've been making knives off and on since the 80s, I decided to go back in this business last year, not because of the tv show, but because of the connectivity of this day in age, much easier to market now than back then. Today I went to order supplies, before I could get what I needed from 1 or 2 suppliers. Today I had to order from 6, I spent an equal amount on shipping as I did the items! All this for a TV show I've never even seen. They will be gone soon, but the damage will be done, supplier prices will never go down. The good thing that happened back with the bikes, it made it acceptable, will this happen now too ? Will any good come of this ? Anyone else feeling it ?????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 Just hope they don't start a "horse shoers of Beverly Hills" show, lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notownkid Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 4 hours ago, ozarkmountainknives said: Anyone else feeling it ?????? I'm not feeling it per say but can see it here on IFI. 2/3 of the newbies on here are going to make Knifes and Swords which I wish them luck doing. The TV Shows make it look so simple and the shops are so well equipped anyone can do it! Right! Wrong. It will all be a bad memory in a 2-3 yrs and they will be on to the next Hot Ticket items. It isn't a Get Rich Quick Scheme it takes years of experience and training not a few hrs watching the Boob Tube or You tube or what ever Tube. The Instant gratification crowd. How many people have we seen here in recent months wanting to become Full Time in Blacksmithing or Blade Smithing? A lot more than the market will support, hope they have some very deep pockets behind them. Every High School Ball player is going to be in the Pro's in 5 yrs. OK! Great! get an education in something that will pay the bills as the % of success is extremely small. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 And the chance of being crippled very high... just think of all the used nice grinders, heat treat ovens and such coming up for sale in about 10 years! Lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the iron dwarf Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 sounds like it is a good time to get into making belt grinders, at least for a while Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstar.esq Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 I suspect Karate class enrollment went up after Karate Kid came out. S&W sold lots of model 29's following the Dirty Harry movie too. Before that there was a whole niche clothing industry for kid sized cowboy outfits. Prices went up during the fad, then came back down. It's easy to be cynical about a popular thing but lots of little kid cowboy's grew up with an appreciation for self sufficiency and justice. To lesser or greater extents, that would be true with my other examples. I think it applies to Forged In Fire as well. Public schools have all but killed off any path other than college for their students. Most colleges aren't interested in practicality which is why administrators outnumber teachers in a growing number of higher education institutions. If their purpose was to teach, and more administrators improved the outcomes, there wouldn't be so many unemployed college graduates. Institutions are what they do, not what they claim to be. I can appreciate the struggle of trying to make a living with ever-raising material prices. I think it's worth pointing out that in the 1980's you'd probably be lucky to have a handful of metal suppliers within driving distance. Companies looking to keep their business running smoothly owned warehouses of stock so that shipping delays didn't prevent them from making a sale. Now, you can get everything sent within a few days from nearly anywhere in the world. Not having to purchase in bulk, or warehouse so much inventory has dramatically reduced the overhead expenses of a small business. You pointed out how marketing has become less expensive in the digital age, and to some extent I think you're right. The thing that marketing folks are reluctant to admit is that most of the successful strategies require a booming economy. Right now you could pay a kings ransom to capture the online markets attention and have only window shoppers to show for it. If a TV show has people valuing the work of a craftsman enough to spur start-ups, you should have a head start on the buyers market without spending a dime. Small entrepreneurs are struggling right now, and it's not because of a TV show, it's because the economy is much worse than the reported statistics. The Atlantic recently had an article on a Federal Reserve Board survey which indicated nearly half of Americans would struggle to come up with $400 in an emergency. In my industry, the media keeps reporting record high construction spending, yet we're starved for work every winter and more tradesman leave with each passing year. Peak season work costs more because it's the only profitable work we get, and we can't hire more journeymen to capture more work. It's awfully easy to bury the cause when you only report on the effects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccustomknives Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 I have personally noticed the price of some materials has went up. But because of those shows so has the price I've been getting. So in that it's all good. Rockstar is right about the economy, if it wasn't for government jobs we'd starve. And that's a bad thing. Anyway, back to the topic. It isn't going to take long to weed out those guys brought in by the shows. A little sweat and a few burns and they'll go back to the video games. Those that have the staying power, that's a good thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Ivan Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 On a related note of this fad boom, as a tool maker, I've been up to my neck in orders since I've settled down in a shop again. Suprizing amounts of new/newer smiths buying hammers vs before which were mostly more established smiths. Not always "established" as in full time, but established as in they know their way around a forge and have a few years under their belts. Can't complain on my end. Except I suppose about the influx of people looking for free apprenticeships and spike in prices of anvils (eBay is partially to blame for that however). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7A749 Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 I can tell you one thing for sure. With the advent of the Internet and social media the whole "fad culture" isn't going away any time soon. It will simply be replaced with another fad, whether it be gun smithing, knife making, bikes, bowling whatever. Look at the whole tattoo craze. I had mine long before they were ever trendy or popular. I don't have a single one that I got just because it was the latest trend on Pinterest, FB etc. Sure, I got the obligatory snake wrapped around the sword, and my very first one came out of a flash book at the tattoo shop. Besides that, they're all very original and have meaning. Well, most of them Funny thing, I ended up working with a guy who had the exact same piece of flash art I had, only it was a little bigger. We hit it off instantly and were pretty cool with each other For the ppl making money off it, the "fad craze culture" is a lucrative gold mine. Unfortunately for the guys that were around long before it, they get stuck paying for the latest viral sensation. As was said by others already, a lot of them will throw in the towel after they realize it's a LOT more work than they imagined. The millennial generation wants instant gratification and if they don't get it, they quickly give up and move on to the next viral fad on social media. Hopefully those individuals don't spend too much to figure that out. Hopefully a few good smiths can get a score on lightly used equipment if they did I know Mr Connor isn't fond of links here so I'll refrain from posting one, but for guys looking for metal finishing supplies (mainly buffing, compounds and wheel type abrasives) Divine Brothers (and their sister company Dico) out of Utica, NY are pretty reasonable and can do just about anything you want. There's a $150 minimum, but I've been happy with my purchases from them. I mainly buy sisal and muslin buffs along with non woven abrasives from them for my 12" polisher. Their compound is quite good as well and can be ordered from Dico. I've been using their stuff since the early 2000's. Not associated nor do I ever get anything from them for nothing ( I wish ) but it's worth checking out. Their non woven wheels (think scotchbrite) were very reasonable and much less than other suppliers I had looked at. Nobody local carries wheels for bigger machines and what I've looked at online wasn't any real savings over Divine. Just my experience anyways. Maybe it can serve useful to someone else. Mods, if that isn't allowed please accept my apologies in advance. I won't be triggered or have to run to my safe space if you remove the info from my post I didn't know if that was the type of supplies the OP was referring to. Figured I would throw it out there. IMHO of course Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwistedCustoms Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 I haven't felt any negative impact from all the hype, yet. Of course I'm not shopping for an anvil but even so I'm still running into them for reasonable prices in my area. I haven't watched any of the blacksmithing cable shows yet but I hear about it from lots of customers. A friend of mine is going out the end of this month to be filmed for an upcoming Forged in Fire. He's a member here so I'll wait and see if he wants to post about it before I blab but I'm looking forward to watching the show for the first time and seeing a buddy. The last time I ordered coal and coke (by the ton) it was lower than the order before but I chalk that up to better fuel prices to get it from Pensilvania to Mississippi. As for customer acquisition costs, my repeat customers are my best salesmen and produce a steady stream of new customers. Fads come and go but if even one person in a thousand who's first exposure to blacksmithing is a cable show finds their passion and becomes a true blacksmith it will be good for the craft. We all got the bug from somewhere! 3 hours ago, Crazy Ivan said: On a related note of this fad boom, as a tool maker, I've been up to my neck in orders since I've settled down in a shop again. Suprizing amounts of new/newer smiths buying hammers vs before which were mostly more established smiths. Not always "established" as in full time, but established as in they know their way around a forge and have a few years under their belts. Can't complain on my end. Except I suppose about the influx of people looking for free apprenticeships and spike in prices of anvils (eBay is partially to blame for that however). I've had a few guys who have never swung a hammer who wanted to purchase a hammer. I tell them I won't sell them one but they can strike two hammers for me, I'll keep one and they can keep one. I'll sell mine to an established smith who is short of time and the prospective smith gets a small taste of the realities of smithing with no out of pocket cost. I'm not trying to keep hammers out of the hands of beginners, I'm trying to put them into hands that will use them. Since I don't own a power hammer this works out for both parties. I've been surprised at times at some of the guys who have followed through and gone home with a new rounding hammer they had a hand in making. Even if they never go any further down the rabbit hole they at the very least have a new level of understanding of what's involved in forging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
templehound Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 On 6/10/2016 at 7:37 AM, ozarkmountainknives said: TV SHOWS !!!! Just like the early 2000s and the custom bike craze. I was building and servicingbikes then. All it did was make parts, materials, supplies, tools, equipment impossible to find, drive up prices, make custom high dollar bikes impossible to insure. Made people who where established in the business lives miserable. I've been making knives off and on since the 80s, I decided to go back in this business last year, not because of the tv show, but because of the connectivity of this day in age, much easier to market now than back then. Today I went to order supplies, before I could get what I needed from 1 or 2 suppliers. Today I had to order from 6, I spent an equal amount on shipping as I did the items! All this for a TV show I've never even seen. They will be gone soon, but the damage will be done, supplier prices will never go down. The good thing that happened back with the bikes, it made it acceptable, will this happen now too ? Will any good come of this ? Anyone else feeling it ?????? Aah, singing the blues!...The good old times have gone! .....You feel that, best sign that You are getting old...."old people" always will complain about new times, and in their point of view they are right....but thats not how it works.....remember: "The only constant thing is change.".....besides TV will never change into something good but it will change to ....so there ever will be a" good old time" for every generation....we will make the best out of .it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7A749 Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 1 hour ago, TwistedCustoms said: I haven't felt any negative impact from all the hype, yet. Of course I'm not shopping for an anvil but even so I'm still running into them for reasonable prices in my area. I haven't watched any of the blacksmithing cable shows yet but I hear about it from lots of customers. A friend of mine is going out the end of this month to be filmed for an upcoming Forged in Fire. He's a member here so I'll wait and see if he wants to post about it before I blab but I'm looking forward to watching the show for the first time and seeing a buddy. The last time I ordered coal and coke (by the ton) it was lower than the order before but I chalk that up to better fuel prices to get it from Pensilvania to Mississippi. As for customer acquisition costs, my repeat customers are my best salesmen and produce a steady stream of new customers. Fads come and go but if even one person in a thousand who's first exposure to blacksmithing is a cable show finds their passion and becomes a true blacksmith it will be good for the craft. We all got the bug from somewhere! I've had a few guys who have never swung a hammer who wanted to purchase a hammer. I tell them I won't sell them one but they can strike two hammers for me, I'll keep one and they can keep one. I'll sell mine to an established smith who is short of time and the prospective smith gets a small taste of the realities of smithing with no out of pocket cost. I'm not trying to keep hammers out of the hands of beginners, I'm trying to put them into hands that will use them. Since I don't own a power hammer this works out for both parties. I've been surprised at times at some of the guys who have followed through and gone home with a new rounding hammer they had a hand in making. Even if they never go any further down the rabbit hole they at the very least have a new level of understanding of what's involved in forging. If I lived close to you I would gladly take you up on that most generous offer. Even tho I got some pretty decent hammers. Not no Hofi's or anything like that, but a few "good" ones. At some point I'll make one for myself, just to say I did it. Thats great of you to offer that to a beginner. I've had a few ppl over and showed them the ropes as far as welding goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted June 18, 2016 Share Posted June 18, 2016 On 6/10/2016 at 8:34 PM, Charles R. Stevens said: Just hope they don't start a "horse shoers of Beverly Hills" show, lol I'm bored and looking back through threads before editing them and am sincerely sorry I missed this post Charles. That show would be called, "Fairier in Beverly Hills." Probably not a lot about horse shoeing but who knows it's Beverly Hills? Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted June 18, 2016 Share Posted June 18, 2016 Not even touching that spelling... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted June 19, 2016 Share Posted June 19, 2016 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted June 19, 2016 Share Posted June 19, 2016 On 6/11/2016 at 9:23 PM, TwistedCustoms said: I've had a few guys who have never swung a hammer who wanted to purchase a hammer. I tell them I won't sell them one but they can strike two hammers for me, I'll keep one and they can keep one. I'll sell mine to an established smith who is short of time and the prospective smith gets a small taste of the realities of smithing with no out of pocket cost. I'm not trying to keep hammers out of the hands of beginners, I'm trying to put them into hands that will use them. Since I don't own a power hammer this works out for both parties. I've been surprised at times at some of the guys who have followed through and gone home with a new rounding hammer they had a hand in making. Even if they never go any further down the rabbit hole they at the very least have a new level of understanding of what's involved in forging. A fair and generous offer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwistedCustoms Posted June 20, 2016 Share Posted June 20, 2016 7 hours ago, JHCC said: A fair and generous offer. Thank you for saying so. This is how I received my first hammer and it was a life changing experience for me. Now that I'm recruiting strikers I actually think it's to my advantage. I've never really had any ambitions for a power hammer and barring that having a striker is the only way to produce some of the tools I cherish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Quade Posted June 20, 2016 Share Posted June 20, 2016 On 2016-06-10 at 1:30 AM, Charles R. Stevens said: And the chance of being crippled very high... just think of all the used nice grinders, heat treat ovens and such coming up for sale in about 10 years! Lol That is looking on the brightside right there! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Quade Posted June 20, 2016 Share Posted June 20, 2016 I haven’t been doing this for a long time but I did get into this the year before Forged in Fire came out so I was lucky to get most of my tools before the prices went crazy. If I was trying to get into this hobby today I don’t believe I could. Or it would at least be much harder. One of my biggest fears is that I will come home from work to find my forge broken into and my stuff all stolen because honestly today I just could not afford to replace it all the way prices are. For example last year I went to an auction that was selling off a good deal of blacksmithing equipment. I got there a few hours early and looked around at all the tools and sure enough a few of the guys from the local blacksmith guild were also there. It was great we all shot the breeze talked about some of the tools and blacksmithing in general. Then we split up and waited for the auction to begin. 30 minutes before the auction around 100 people showed up and started buying tools without even looking at them. The first item up was a 70lb anvil with a huge crack in the face, it sold for over 500 dollars. The next thing to go was a brake drum forge it sold for nearly 600. I left after that because clearly it was just madness in there. And sure enough the other smiths I had seen before were walking out as well. We all met up in the driveway and were all flabbergasted at what was happening. We just didn’t get what was happening. Turns out that the first season of forged in fire had just ended and people wanted tools and had enough money to make that happen. So yea for me it sucked, I really wanted a French pattern forging hammer but for the guy selling he must have been in his hay day because every item in that room was selling for hundreds of dollars so he made out like a bandit. I guess what I'm getting at in a roundabout way is that every fad has people who benefit and people who suffer. The nice thing right now is that people are getting to value hand forged items whether knives or otherwise, they see how hard these guys work on the show, sweat pouring off them, attempting to make the blade perfect. Then when they see yours they have an image in their head of what that really took. Its not like in the lord of the rings where two guys make a sword by hitting two pieces of metal close to the edge a couple of times and its done, or in any other movie where it’s just a few hits of the hammer and bam there is your sword sir. I have since watched both seasons of that show with my girlfriend and it’s a good fun show. I really like it even if the tests seem a bit out there some times. And watching the show has made her want to learn more about it, about some of the things the show doesn’t get into in depth and so on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted June 20, 2016 Share Posted June 20, 2016 The other upside, in the Saltfork Craftmen (Oklahomas Blacksmith and material arts club) the membership has doubled in the last couple of years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boisdarc Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 The funny thing about "fad" culture, most of the fads that people have tried to be part of are "pretty cool", knife making, motorcycle making, hot rodding, mma, beer making, shooting, prepping. There is a reason people want to replicate that at home. Its cool. Shooting guns and bows and arrows, making beer, hardtailing your bike, tattoos, what ever, they're all pretty cool things to learn how to do. All of those fad jumpers are wanting to do cool stuff. I'm ok with that. It makes supplies more available not less available. Yes, some of the older tools are getting scooped up by johnny comelately. But aren't there more knife making supply companies around now than five years ago? I have been doing martial arts off and on for a lot of years, doing MMA for longer than the first season of ultimate fighter has been around. The guys that really wanted to train stuck with it, and the guys that watched it on tv and thought "any"body could do it, found out how much work it was(and how much fun getting punched in the face wasn't) quit. I had kids show up that told me they had already signed up to take a fight in 3 monthes. I usually asked them if they wrestled in highschool-they would say "no". I would ask them if they ever took karate or tae kwon do at the "Y"-they would say no. I would ask them if they got into a lot of street fights-again "no". Then, I would ask them if they watched UFC fights-you can probably fill in the blank right. That was the down side, the up side was sometimes when I needed to replace equipment, it was always "lightly used" on ebay that I would buy at a discount. SO, the moral is most fads are fads for a reason, and with popularity of a sport/hobby-the availability of that hobbies supply houses becomes more readily available, and after the fad has ran its course, the good stuff will be available again at a discount price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jspool Posted June 28, 2016 Share Posted June 28, 2016 I have collected and designed blades for years. In the last couple years I started to make my own. I have made blades ranging from stock removal, to mosaic damascus, on my own, and at classes I have taken. In my opinion, because the process of making a masterful knife has such a long learning curve, the more folks that attempt to do so on their own will serve to expand their appreciation of what it takes to make a great blade. Hopefully this will result in less balking, and more understanding regarding the pricing of custom knives. Have you pros found sales increasing, and more willingness to pay the price by the knife buying public? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bmallen77 Posted June 29, 2016 Share Posted June 29, 2016 similarly to the knife and sword making I have noticed the furniture market is in a similar way. I had a few carpenters I was constantly building table bases for. Through those guys I started building them for a couple interior designers, that was more than 50 percent of my income building table bases and tables. In the past year and a half that business has all but dried up. I still have the original carpenters I did work for cause they, as tradesman, they understand quality precision work. They are willing to pay a little more for quality and loyalty. But interior desigers, a lot of contractors, it's all about the bottom line, MONEY and who is cheaper. Not to go on a rant but it's because every guy with a garage bought a harbor freight welder and a chop saw and decided to start doing 'side jobs.' I don't think there is anything wrong with being a do it yourselfer, however I have spent the last 12 years of my life working my butt off in welding shops, metal shops, ironworks, black smithing shops to learn the skills I have and to attain the tools I have. Why is it that a guy buys a welder spends a year messing around on the weekends and now he thinks he's good enough to produce a professional product?? Partly to blame is the public though. We have let our standards of quality slip so much, and settle for cheaply made crap and think it looks good. The majority of people wouldn't know the difference between a high quality piece, or something that was done in a big production by unskilled labor. ( little side story.... Recently had a guy I went to high school with contact me about building some hardware and rollers for a barn type rolling door for a high end Marriott hotel. He was the carpenter for the job and had recently started his own business. He's telling me about all these high end jobs he's done and what not. He brought the two wood doors he had built to my shop so I could get some sizing and take some pictures of them. I started measuring them up and saw none of the measurements were the same. Everything was either a /16th or 1/8" off. Checked them for cross square, one of them was a half inch out of square, the other was 3/8" out of square. These doors were only 7' tall and 30" wide and nothing fancy. I never mentioned it to the carpenter guy from my high school but I started asking him about who he worked for before he started this business. The answer was.....No One.. He went to school for art and has almost no practical hands on experience. Yet he is doing work on a high end hotel. And he was charging ridiculous money for those doors. It just disgusted me. I would feel embarrassed to give another craftsman my work and it be out of square. I flat out wouldn't put out work like that. But he makes stuff out of "reclaimed lumber" and that is real popular right now so people will pay. It's crazy. I think eventually this fad will pass and the guys who don't know what they're doing will screw enough stuff up people won't hire them anymore, but it's just a sad state of affairs. The same deal is going on with knife making. There is nothing wrong with making knives and practicing and learning and giving them away to people, family, buddies, friends, but to start up a business and compete with the guys who have spent years of their lives learning and developing their skills is just dumb. Start at the bottom, learn from a pro, practice a ton and then start your Buisness. Maybe I have it wrong and am being too judgmental. It's just something I have become passionate about being a struggling buisness owner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted June 29, 2016 Share Posted June 29, 2016 Bmallen77, those are some very good thoughts, and well articulated. I spent enough years working with my hands professionally to know that I'm much better suited to do so as an amateur (in the original sense of someone who does it for love) and to make my living elsewhere. It does give you a stronger appreciation for the work of the professionals, though, and to be inspired by them to improve my own meager efforts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bmallen77 Posted June 29, 2016 Share Posted June 29, 2016 Well I hope I didn't come off sounding like guys who forge and build things for fun, "do it yourselfers" I call them are not skilled or don't do quality work. That's far from true And not what I believe at all. I have met a number of hobby blacksmith/fabricators who are more skilled or creative than myself, I think to be a skilled professional builder it takes the combination of always pushing for accuracy and quality overall (you need to be somewhat of a perfectionist) but you still have to know your time constraints and realize it's a buisness as much as it is a passion and needs to be profitable. A lot of super skilled guys can't put out a product fast enough to make any money and then you have the hacks that it's all about money and don't care about quality. You need both in my opinion to really be something. my first boss was this little old tough Irish guy who loved to speak his mind, he told me my first week working for him, and I will never forget, "if the tenth time you do something, your still doing it the same way you did it the first time, then your f@&$:d up, and you shouldn't be a metal worker. You should always be figuring a way to be doing it faster, more accurate, and higher quality." That is something that has stuck with me cause it's so true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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